Members of St John’s Church in Ben Rhydding are adding their prayers to global calls for polluters to pay for the loss and damage caused by the climate crisis – with a creative twist to help focus minds on the people most affected.

St John’s Church has created a display of paper prayer people to represent the people who have lost their lives, homes, or livelihoods because of increasingly severe and common extreme weather events, such as floods, storms and droughts. They were moved by the scale of the rebuilding communities in southern Malawi were undertaking, after nearly half of the country experienced flooding and landslides following Cyclone Freddy in March.

Michael Faulkner from St John’s Church who has led the St John’s activities said: “As Christians we are driven by the belief that everyone is created equal and should have the opportunity to experience life in its fullness. Therefore, we were led to take action by the injustice whereby many communities are facing the prospect of debt and poverty as they pay to rebuild following climate disasters, despite having done the least to cause the climate crisis, while big polluters continue to profit from the fossil fuels they produce.”

St John’s Church started their action by raising money for Christian Aid, a UK charity working with local partners in Malawi, and across the globe, to help create a world where everyone can live a full life free from poverty. Now they’ve joined other churches across the UK in Christian Aid’s #RiseUpPayUp action.

Michael Faulkner said: “We started by learning about the impacts that climate-related loss and damage has had on people’s lives. Then we prayed for justice to prevail by creating paper prayer people calling for polluters to pay up for loss and damage.”

Another member of St John’s Church, Ros Brown, said: “We would be delighted to have others join us in our action by visiting the display and adding their own message when the display moves to the lobby of Christchurch on The Grove from Thursday 18th May until Monday 22nd May. We are thrilled to have Christchurch join us in this campaign for justice.”

The display will be available between 10am and 3pm for members of the public to add their prayer people to the display.

Hilary Davies, another member of St John’s Church said: “This campaign is personal for many of us as in September 2018 we welcomed Webster Kita (Chair) and Howard Msukwa (Vice Chair) of the Kaporo Smallholder Farmer Association (KASFA), Malawi and John Riches founder of ‘Just Trading Scotland’ (JTS) to St John’s Church as part of our ongoing commitment to buying rice through the Kilombero 90kg rice challenge which supports Webster’s and Howard’s communities. Saturday 13th May was World Fair Trade Day, if anyone would like to show their support and take part in the rice challenge people can find out more at www.jts.co.uk and contact Hilary through office@benrhydding.co.uk to order the rice."

St John’s Church are planning to gather up all the prayer people and share them with Robbie Moore MP.

Michael Faulkner said: "We hope to show Robbie Moore that many in this community want to see polluters pay up for loss and damage and use this to encourage them to support loss and damage funding too.”